Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2016-05-16 May 16, 2016Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order.~ Jeremy BenthamActually, it is not strange that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert matter, ready to receive everything -- form, face, energy, movement, life -- from a great prince or a great legislator or a great genius. These centuries were nourished on the study of antiquity. And antiquity presents everywhere -- in Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome -- the spectacle of a few men molding mankind according to their whims, thanks to the prestige of force and of fraud. But this does not prove that this situation is desirable. It proves only that since men and society are capable of improvement, it is naturally to be expected that error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition should be greatest towards the origins of history. The writers quoted above were not in error when they found ancient institutions to be such, but they were in error when they offered them for the admiration and imitation of future generations. Uncritical and childish conformists, they took for granted the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the artificial societies of the ancient world. They did not understand that knowledge appears and grows with the passage of time; and that in proportion to this growth of knowledge, might takes the side of right, and society regains possession of itself.~ Frederic Bastiat May 13, 2016You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that you're in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun.~ Florynce KennedyI know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.~ Frederick DouglassThere is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself.~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau May 12, 2016It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution...[T]he Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-Left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says ‘me too’.~ Michael ReaganHe who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.We've witnessed a fire sale of American liberties at bargain basement prices, in return for the false promise of more security... The America being designed right now won't resemble the America we've been defending... The danger isn't that Big Brother may storm the castle gates. The danger is that Americans don't realize that he is already inside the castle walls.~ Wayne LaPierre May 11, 2016It rankles me when somebody tries to force somebody to do something.~ John WayneAnd to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?~ Thomas Babington MacaulayThe type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.~ William Graham Sumner May 10, 2016A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands -- even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.~ John Stuart MillIn 1897, troops from the greatest empire the world had ever seen marched down London’s mall for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. Seventy years later, Britain had government health care, a government-owned car industry, massive government housing, and it was a shriveled high-unemployment socialist basket-case living off the dwindling cultural capital of its glorious past. In 1945, America emerged from the Second World War as the preeminent power on earth. Seventy years later ... Let’s not go there.~ Mark SteynTo the extent that these [New Deal policies] developed, they were tortured interpretations of a document [the Constitution] intended to prevent them.~ Rexford Tugwell Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print